Location: University of Konstanz (Germany)

Date of establishment: 2005

Duration of contract: 10 years financed by the DZF

End of furtherance: 2015 (will be further supported by the state of Baden-Württemberg)

Chairholder: Prof. dr. Marcel Leist

The Dorenkamp-Zbinden Chair at the University of Konstanz in Germany was the first of several endowed professorships founded by the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation. It was established in 2003 under the name “The Doerenkamp-Zbinden Professorship of Consumer Protection and Health” in order to promote research and teaching in the area of the 3R (Refinement, Replacement, Reduction of animal experiments). Under the influence of the modern scientific currents and developments, additionally influenced and determined by new toxicological approaches as formulated by the National Research Council of the USA in 2007 in its vision and roadmap document on a “Toxicology for the 21st century”, the chair changed its name in “The Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair of in-vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine”. The aim of the chair has stayed the same working strongly toward the 3Rs approach in teaching and research. The new activities and research of the chair have focused more on pharmacological and toxicological research in the areas of neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration.

Besides experimental research, the chair conceptualizes new toxicological approaches within the "transatlantic think tank for toxicology (t4)", and is strongly involved in promoting research and development in the field of alternative methods to animal experimentation, within a joint venture of CAAT-Europe (Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing) in Konstanz and CAAT at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns-Hopkins University in Baltimore.

For more information about the team, projects and activities of the Chair at the University of Konstanz please click the following link:

→ The Doerenkamp-Zbinden Chair of in-vitro Toxicology and Biomedicine

Highlighted projects:

• Replacement of animal experiments in Parkinson’s research
  
• In vitro cell differentiation assays to replace rodent and companion animal use in tests of neurotoxicity and embryotoxicity
  
• Establishment and validation of an improved in vitro model of the blood brain
  
• Development of in vitro embryonic stem cell-based cell assays to screen for toxicity of emerging nanomaterials